Just four days ago, National Security Agency (NSA) leaker Edward Snowden issued a rare statement, forcefully arguing against the American government’s line that what it does is not surveillance.

In particular, it appeared that Snowden was directly challenging Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA). Feinstein has been one of the intelligence community’s strongest allies, and she notably heads the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Specifically, Feinstein wrote on October 20 in USA Today that the NSA's "call-records program is not surveillance."

But on Monday, Feinstein herself issued a new statement, calling for a “total review of all intelligence programs” in light of the new revelations of American surveillance conducted on American allies including France, Spain, Mexico, and Germany.

“Let me state unequivocally: I am totally opposed," Feinstein said. “Unlike NSA’s collection of phone records under a court order, it is clear to me that certain surveillance activities have been in effect for more than a decade and that the Senate Intelligence Committee was not satisfactorily informed. Therefore our oversight needs to be strengthened and increased.”

Feinstein went on to say that “unless the United States is engaged in hostilities against a country or there is an emergency need for this type of surveillance," she does not believe the US should collect e-mails and phone calls from friendly foreign leaders. In her eyes, the president should explicitly approve that type of surveillance.

“It is my understanding that President Obama was not aware Chancellor Merkel’s communications were being collected since 2002," she concluded. "That is a big problem.”

Promoted Comments

Too little, too late, Mrs. Feinstein. I'm voting against you in the next primary, and maybe the general election depending on how credible the competition is. (Special thanks to California's new top-two party-agnostic primary system.)

But I appreciate that you feel like spying on the foreign wealthy and powerful is over the line. Now if you could only realize that spying on the domestic underprivileged is too.

Share this story

Cyrus Farivar
Cyrus is a Senior Tech Policy Reporter at Ars Technica, and is also a radio producer and author. His latest book, Habeas Data, about the legal cases over the last 50 years that have had an outsized impact on surveillance and privacy law in America, is out now from Melville House. He is based in Oakland, California. Emailcyrus.farivar@arstechnica.com//Twitter@cfarivar

Too little, too late, Mrs. Feinstein. I'm voting against you in the next primary, and maybe the general election depending on how credible the competition is. (Special thanks to California's new top-two party-agnostic primary system.)

But I appreciate that you feel like spying on the foreign wealthy and powerful is over the line. Now if you could only realize that spying on the domestic underprivileged is too.

I don't think Feinstein has changed her tune at all. She's always been fully supportive of NSA suspicionless surveillance of American citizens and others, and she still is. It's only the ruling class that she's finally speaking up to defend.

This woman makes me ashamed to be a Democrat. She's as anti-freedom and anti-privacy as anyone in the government. W and Dick are proud of her.

Like I said on the comments of a different article, this is the effect of decades of abstraction of politicians from the real world. They for the most part simply no longer consider us regular citizens as their equals hence we get treated like we are less deserving of privacy and freedom of speech. It is a common elitist view held by many but in this case it is one supported by political power and money so it is a dangerous one for our politicians to take on this issues.

Too little, too late, Mrs. Feinstein. I'm voting against you in the next primary, and maybe the general election depending on how credible the competition is. (Special thanks to California's new top-two party-agnostic primary system.)

But I appreciate that you feel like spying on the foreign wealthy and powerful is over the line. Now if you could only realize that spying on the domestic underprivileged is too.

Amen to this. Too many times in the past couple years, I've read things Senator Feinstein says and think, "Is she for real?". I'll definitely be voting against her in the primary.

Feinstein went on to say that “unless the United States is engaged in hostilities against a country or there is an emergency need for this type of surveillance," she does not believe the US should collect e-mails and phone calls from friendly foreign leaders.

Senator Feinstein, is the United States engaged in hostilities against me? Is there an emergency need for this type of surveillance of me? No? Then why is the NSA logging all of my phone calls and tracking my internet use? Frankly, I feel like the United States is engaged in hostilities against me!

What a wretch of a politician, I already hated her guts so I guess this shouldn't surprise me. I have a bit more respect for a politician who is willing to consistently be the "bad guy" vs a shameless hack who panders to random causes that have become politically expedient. Her district shares in my contempt :-/

Like I said on the comments of a different article, this is the effect of decades of abstraction of politicians from the real world. They for the most part simply no longer consider us regular citizens as their equals hence we get treated like we are less deserving of privacy and freedom of speech. It is a common elitist view held by many but in this case it is one supported by political power and money so it is a dangerous one for our politicians to take on this issues.

Well yes and no. For instance, Barbara Boxer still flies commercial and refuses to use the free parking at SFO for politicians. Feinstein on the other hand flies in the Blum private jet.

Can somebody please put this miserable lying corporate-sponsored hypocrite behind bars for treason? It's clear she either does not understand the constitution at all or is actively opposed to it and actively destroying it on purpose. So is most of her party, and most of the "opposition". And they are doing it mostly for covet means, in the dark, illegally, and CERTAINLY immorally. How is this treacherous crone NOT in jail already? Where are the troops who swore an oath to the constitution?!?! HELLO?!?! ENEMY #1 RIGHT HERE!

Most people think they are targets. Politicians are actual targets. But they usually have a protection detail, usually just the beefy guy in a suit that you know is packin'.

I don't know that most people think they are targets, more they are being watched unecessarily to find an undefined potential target. If the target is defined, they don't need random US citizen. If the target is undefined, it is improbable that a given random US citizen has anything to do with the potential targets, ergo there isn't a justifiable reason to for surveillance, nor is it warranted given the costs.

Funnily enough it is pretty much the same for the global population. We aren't all your enemies, despite not being your friend. But treating everyone as potential targets is a self-fulfilling prophesy. You will find something to match your fears.

I think the anger at the politicians is misplaced, or that at least Hanlon's Razor applies. As a politician in DC, institutionally, the default condition is to trust the Intelligence agencies. How could it be otherwise? Yes, the politicians have oversight responsibility, but that oversight isn't (can't be) transparent, so there aren't third-parties raising additional objective challenges to the methods. And that oversight is self-regulated, for fear of acting in a manner that comes down as too partisan and making the agencies hold back from full disclosure.

The fatal flaw here is that NSA et al. were holding back anyway, given free reign for too long and got comfortable acting without meaningful oversight. The anger should remain focused on the agencies. Those GS14s and GS15s know exactly how to play shell games in the bureaucracy, how to silence whistle-blowers, make reports get lost in the paperwork shuffle, how to not let anyone above them mess with their little fiefdoms.

If anything, I'd imagine Obama and Feinstein et al. are furious with the NSA. What I imagine what they would say: "We trusted you. We gave you cover to the public, because we know your job requires working in the shadows. We let you do that, and gave you tactical leeway because you promised to tell us what you were doing so we could make the strategic and policy decisions. You lied, you screwed up, you let it leak, and now we have to clean up your disaster." For a politician to come out and make such a 180, knowing the accusations of hypocrisy, waffling, and cynicism that will follow, speaks to how seriously they take the matter.

So better late than never, I hope the change of heart is sincere. It's not much consolation in the short-term, but if this creates real oversight in the long-run, then this pain will be remembered as necessary but not awful.

Too little, too late, Mrs. Feinstein. I'm voting against you in the next primary, and maybe the general election depending on how credible the competition is. (Special thanks to California's new top-two party-agnostic primary system.)

But I appreciate that you feel like spying on the foreign wealthy and powerful is over the line. Now if you could only realize that spying on the domestic underprivileged is too.

Oh, man, I don't care what kind of lunatic is running against her. I'll vote for anyone BUT her. In fact, I think that method may be suitable for every incumbent.

I think the anger at the politicians is misplaced, or that at least Hanlon's Razor applies. As a politician in DC, institutionally, the default condition is to trust the Intelligence agencies. How could it be otherwise?

For once I do believe that Obama didn't have any idea on this one; wire tapping our allies is way too far.

well, yeah, the whole deal has been one big exercise in "too far" but everything up till now has fallen under the umbrella of "for the turrerorists" gone overboard; actively monitoring and recording the communications of our allies leaders based off of contact information that was freely given to the US in trust is nothing but a giant dump on our entire foreign relations.

No one is going to trust us again.No one is going to negotiate favorably with us again.No one is going to support us in another conflict.

America has maintained it world dominance by pressuring dissident states with the allusion that "everyone else is with us, except you ..." but that is now going to crumble.

I don't see any situation where Obama would have allowed this kind of a political shit bomb to stew, he is just too much of a political negotiator to tolerate something that would obliterate the bargaining power of the US. I'm thinking he wasn't told about this and blew a fucking gasket over the weekend; I have the feeling that a shit storm is about to start blowing in the NSA offices since the WSJ report didn't have the same tone as the typical White House spin doctored information & the way Feinstein is jumping right now makes me thing she has a giant black foot stuffed right up her asshole.

On the same day that the White House claims suddenly that they had no idea what was really going on. Nice 180, guys.

I imagine someone suddenly dug up something where the NSA acted without approval and decided it was their golden ticket. In one move it allows them to have a way to apologise to foreign leaders, try pretend they didn't have anything to do with it via not having anything to do with this one specific overreach and they can use it as an excuse to have more leverage over the NSA to do whatever they want in the future.

I could see someone like Feinstein licking her lips over a chance to use this to further define NSA policy from the Senate rather than having them do it themselves. Politicians love nothing if not control over things.